As long as you keep it to yourself, it is not illegal. And, right now that is what they choose to do. I doubt those companies will target them before the sites that actually distribute them. Similar to meagupload being targeted, but not the individuals who are illegally uploading and sharing the materials.

If online readers and scan teams are making all this money from ads, then how much is Google and other ad providers making? If Google pays mangafox a ton of money, it only makes sense that Google is making even more money from manga than mangafox is. The true problem lies with those that are paying out the money, not really those that receive it. Just who is PAYING for the illegal activity to happen? It's those dishing out the cash that entice people to turn scanlation into a business. Does anyone ever blame Google? (I just did!)

Yet no publisher can take on Google or take on those companies that buy ad space from Google.

Since Mx0 was axed, theres rumor saying that the most Nipponses feels retarded if they start liking manga series was already popular among Gaijins, before that manga popular in Japan.And thats affecting sales in Japan.

Just like Mx0 on its time, Beelzebub also often featured as top ranked popularity in many manga aggregators.

i have to agree with you on that front. imagine what a scanlator does...its first a raw, they may buy it or come across it, than its translation, take a look at what the minimum it costs for get something translated "professionally" isthan there is the editing, another thing which can cost 30-60$ an hour professionally, depending on skill and if its a pay by commission, or if its a pay per hour deal, most things i found in this area are between 20-40$ an hour, more if you can finish fast.

if you want to look at this cynically, than yea, they are in it for money, at the same time, they could take it up through donations also, like saha does, where people pay you for the translation and the editing.

or they could make money translating the manga, money that would go toward purchasing a the raws, and also an incentive to keeping the translators and editors around.

copyright law is a bit hard here, because you could buy a manga, get it translated, and edit it all together on your own and its legal, its the piracy part that gets people... if they just put up the text translated, i do believe that is legal.

You know what's sad, Naeko? 99.5% of the readers don't know that stuff. Reason? They want their manga and don't care about the rest or they don't check out the news of what's happening in Japan....anyone still remember the tokyo bill?

actually it's not legal. You are not ruin the works of an author...or something like that...think there's a law...

Anyway even if it's legal to do whatever you want with your copy of the work since you bought it, you aren't allowed to share the raws (mind no not that many groups buy raws when they can find them for free so illegal there already) with any other of your groups since it's distribution^^

I agree with you about the aggregators, they should target the online readers, the ones that are making money on this stuff and not promoting it even if they say so. Throw them in jail and have it on the news to give the others warning of what will happen if they continue. Of course they should continue to take the big ones down to make a bigger impact on the rest.